“Under the Skin,” opening Friday at The Edge 12 in Birmingham, is the rare film to depict the truly alien — and not only pertaining to its central character, but a film that presents the mundane and normalcy of everyday human life in new angles scarcely seen in cinema. It’s one of a very few recent films that is best left experienced, as to attempt to describe it in any thorough fashion might rob it of its insidious, terrifying power. You will see the world through different eyes, and an experience that genuine is rare in the current cinema.

To call “Under the Skin” Kubrickian is probably simplistic, but then, you try watching it and not be reminded at points of that master director’s iconic science fiction classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” But where Stanley Kubrick was concerned with the infinite, director Jonathan Glazer here uses a sci-fi story to examine life on Earth, and what it means to be human, through the eyes of an extraterrestrial at first sent to the planet for nefarious purposes. To depict the truly unknown, Glazer borrows similar imagery from Kubrick’s film, as the film opens with a sequence that would not have been out of place in the more abstract moments of Kubrick’s oeuvre.

First we see darkness. Concentric white circles align. A blackness oozes, fills a void. When we are finally grounded in something we recognize, we might be shocked to discover we’re staring at the iris of a human eye—Scarlett Johansson’s, in fact. Just what exactly happened is not spelled out until the closing of the film, but we come to understand that what we are seeing is not human, and we come to discover all too well that it has disguised itself as a human for dark intentions.

The alien, blank and dispassionate in the face of the busy streets of Glasgow, Scotland, drives the city streets in a white van. Occasionally it stops next to solitary men, usually asking for directions at first, then by one method or another trying to tempt these men to take a ride with her. Since it looks like Scarlett Johansson, many of these men agree. It takes the men back to its rundown apartment, and what happens inside is best observed, a terrifying process clearly not crafted by human hands.

It’s worth noting that Glazer and Johansson filmed many of these encounters guerrilla-style, with hidden cameras documenting Johansson’s legitimate attempts to seduce unsuspecting men into this van. This mixture of professional actors and unsuspecting bystanders is seamless. The end result is a frightening authenticity.

Considering we have the point of view of a non-human character, so many of the things we take for granted in modern society are presented from new points of view, or with a stylized, amplified sound mix that heightens the mundane everyday sounds to an unfamiliar cacophony, further intensified by Mica Levi’s shrieking, nerve-shredding score. It’s not that this alien’s methods are unfamiliar; it’s that, to her, human life is a completely new phenomenon. A busy mall and a bustling nightclub are seen as almost horrific settings. A normal day at the beach that goes terribly wrong is presented as dispassionately as can be through the eyes of a thing that just doesn’t know how to react to what happens. Eventually, something about humanity catches up to the alien, and what seemed like the story of a black widow luring men to their fates breaks apart, loses its purpose just as our central character does.

This is Glazer’s first film in 10 years, following the 2004 Nicole Kidman-starring “Birth.” He hinted at being Kubrick’s heir apparent in that marvelous film; here, he sets the bar even higher for himself, plumbing new territory in brilliant fashion in a genre as exhausted as science fiction. Coupled with a career-best performance from Johansson, a movie star ill-used in most blockbusters but tremendously effective in the right roles, “Under the Skin” is a modern classic, oblique and scary and a movie that may not be for all tastes, but incomparable and a must-see for the adventurous moviegoer.

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“Under the Skin,” opening Friday at The Edge 12 in Birmingham, is the rare film to depict the truly alien — and not only pertaining to its central character, but a film that presents the mundane and normalcy of everyday human life in new angles scarcely seen in cinema. It’s one of a very few recent films that is best left experienced, as to attempt to describe it in any thorough fashion might rob it of its insidious, terrifying power. You will see the world through different eyes, and an experience that genuine is rare in the current cinema.

To call “Under the Skin” Kubrickian is probably simplistic, but then, you try watching it and not be reminded at points of that master director’s iconic science fiction classic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” But where Stanley Kubrick was concerned with the infinite, director Jonathan Glazer here uses a sci-fi story to examine life on Earth, and what it means to be human, through the eyes of an extraterrestrial at first sent to the planet for nefarious purposes. To depict the truly unknown, Glazer borrows similar imagery from Kubrick’s film, as the film opens with a sequence that would not have been out of place in the more abstract moments of Kubrick’s oeuvre.

First we see darkness. Concentric white circles align. A blackness oozes, fills a void. When we are finally grounded in something we recognize, we might be shocked to discover we’re staring at the iris of a human eye—Scarlett Johansson’s, in fact. Just what exactly happened is not spelled out until the closing of the film, but we come to understand that what we are seeing is not human, and we come to discover all too well that it has disguised itself as a human for dark intentions.

The alien, blank and dispassionate in the face of the busy streets of Glasgow, Scotland, drives the city streets in a white van. Occasionally it stops next to solitary men, usually asking for directions at first, then by one method or another trying to tempt these men to take a ride with her. Since it looks like Scarlett Johansson, many of these men agree. It takes the men back to its rundown apartment, and what happens inside is best observed, a terrifying process clearly not crafted by human hands.

It’s worth noting that Glazer and Johansson filmed many of these encounters guerrilla-style, with hidden cameras documenting Johansson’s legitimate attempts to seduce unsuspecting men into this van. This mixture of professional actors and unsuspecting bystanders is seamless. The end result is a frightening authenticity.

Considering we have the point of view of a non-human character, so many of the things we take for granted in modern society are presented from new points of view, or with a stylized, amplified sound mix that heightens the mundane everyday sounds to an unfamiliar cacophony, further intensified by Mica Levi’s shrieking, nerve-shredding score. It’s not that this alien’s methods are unfamiliar; it’s that, to her, human life is a completely new phenomenon. A busy mall and a bustling nightclub are seen as almost horrific settings. A normal day at the beach that goes terribly wrong is presented as dispassionately as can be through the eyes of a thing that just doesn’t know how to react to what happens. Eventually, something about humanity catches up to the alien, and what seemed like the story of a black widow luring men to their fates breaks apart, loses its purpose just as our central character does.

This is Glazer’s first film in 10 years, following the 2004 Nicole Kidman-starring “Birth.” He hinted at being Kubrick’s heir apparent in that marvelous film; here, he sets the bar even higher for himself, plumbing new territory in brilliant fashion in a genre as exhausted as science fiction. Coupled with a career-best performance from Johansson, a movie star ill-used in most blockbusters but tremendously effective in the right roles, “Under the Skin” is a modern classic, oblique and scary and a movie that may not be for all tastes, but incomparable and a must-see for the adventurous moviegoer.